Mobilizing Election Day turnout for the school board races

Who will win the ground game today getting voters to the polls for the Wake County school board elections?

As noted in today's article, both political parties and a number of left-leaning and right-leaning groups have been trying to turn out the vote. In this off-year election, something as low as a 20 percent turnout would be really high.

Mack Paul, chairman of the Wake County Democratic Party, said they're close to their goal of raising $85,000 as part of their coordinated campaign to turn out the vote and retake the school board. He said the money has allowed them to hire paid campaign staff and open field offices.

"This is the largest field operation in an off-year election in the history of Wake County," Paul said. "This is what you'd see in a Presidential election."

Susan Bryant, chairwoman of the Wake County Republican Party, didn't appear to be impressed by the Democratic effort. She said the GOP, as in the past, is relying on volunteers while the Democrats are using paid personnel.

"I don't think our people need to be paid to get out to vote," Bryant said.

Bryant said the GOP operation is similar to what was done in 2009 when they helped elect the new school board majority.

But Bryant conceded that the Democrats, as in the past, have done a better job on early voting. Registered Democrats outnumbered registered Republicans 2 to 1 in early voting and absentee votes cast this year.